Hey guys! I just gave Himeka-chan her first face-up. I’ve never worked with vinyl or acrylic paint before, so it turned out pretty sloppy, but she’s naturally cute so she still looks nice. I wanted to show you :) I will redo it better ASAP.
A problem I had was the paint getting clumpy and sort of solidifying on the brush… I wonder if using thinner would help? I don’t know squat about acrylic paint. All I know is you can’t erase like you can using watercolor pencils, which I use on my resin girls :/
~Jen
My dolls finally received their new glass eyes. Glass eyes are typically very expensive, running roughly $50 per pair. My friend Mendokusai on DOA pointed me in the direction of a very talented artist who makes pairs for $10, and I got some pairs for my girls. It’s really fulfilling to have the last piece of their appearance in place, and they’re so much nicer than the acrylics I used to have. Check them out!
Nora
Kail
Arlet
I’m happy that they finally came in the mail.
~Jen
So, Minoru World and Blue Fairy are owned by the same person. I adore everything they do, which is…unfortunate in a way. Today they released three limiteds, and I am smitten with two of them. The outfits and accessories are gorgeous too. I wish I could get them, but alas, enough is enough, at least until an interval passes! O__O
Valentine May
Somang
Seriously, Blue Fairy people. Stop making stuff I love so much.
~Jen
Introduction to BJDs
History and Basics
A BJD, or an ABJD, is an Asian Ball Jointed Doll. These dolls are usually made of resin. The resin is hollow on the inside, and the pieces of the doll are connected by elastic. This elastic works like a skeleton, allowing the doll to make and hold a large number of poses. There are many companies, and each one has a different style. Most BJDs are either quite realistic or influenced by the style of Anime. ABJDs typically come from Japan, South Korea, or China.
ABJDs originated in 1999 with Volks’ Super Dollfie. Many people mistakenly call all BJDs “dollfies,” even though this name specifically refers to dolls made by Volks. The dolls have come a long way since then, and modern doll companies offer expanded posability and fantasy options such as wings, animal ears and tails, vampire teeth, and hooves.
One of the greatest charms of BJDs is that they are highly customizable. You can change their clothes, of course, but you can also change their eyes and wigs. Doll owners can even paint on the faces and bodies of their dolls to achieve the perfect look (more on this later). More adventurous people modify dolls by giving them realistic scars, adding webbing between their fingers, changing their ear shape, etc.
BJDs come in three basic sizes. The largest dolls are about 1/3 scale, standing anywhere from 55-90cm tall (typically around 60-70cm). These guys are called SDs and usually have an adult aesthetic. MSDs or “minis” are roughly 1/4 scale (about 40cm) and typically look like children ranging from about age 8-15. Slim MSDs look more like young adults. Finally, any doll below roughly 33cm is known as a “tiny.” Tinies range from about 8cm to 33cm. Tinies that are about 25cm tall are specifically called yo-SDs. This name comes from the name that Volk’s assigned to its 25cm BJDs (although you really should not call all BJDs dollfies, calling 25cm dolls yo-SDs or yos is the norm).
These dolls are not intended as toys for children. They are expensive pieces of art and are fairly easy to damage if the owner is careless. Unfortunately, because each doll is hand made and constructed of resin, they are suprisingly expensive. Their accessories are also pricey, typically because they are hand made too.
What can I do with a Doll?
Most doll owners enjoy customizing their dolls, as mentioned above. Users also sew for them and take photos of them. These photos are often elaborately planned, and the dolls are sometimes set up in a lovely display of doll-sized props and accessories, resulting in realistic and artsy photos. Some people write photostories involving their dolls, where they take sequential pictures showing the dolls interacting together and “living” out a scene.
Because the dolls are very realistic, many owners develop an emotional attachment to them. Dolls often receive a name and a personality. Users may assign the persona of one of their invented characters to a doll (these people may be writers, D&D fans, or simply imaginative), which sometimes deepens this sense of attachment. There are some users who treat their dolls like real people and openly admit to preferring their resin companions to their human ones; however, this group is a minority. Most users do agree that their dolls are special posessions.
What is the BJD Community?
The BJD community is a group of people who love dolls and love to talk about them. This community is mostly found on the internet. This is probably due to the fact that most people can only buy dolls and accessories for them online, and because BJD enthusiasts are very difficult to find without the aid of the web. The online BJD community is very active and large. The biggest forum for BJDs is called den of angels, which has over 25,000 members.
Owners love to share their pictures, speculate over new releases, and chat about dolls. Community members plan meet-ups to see each other in real life and sometimes form strong friendships through the forum. Some people complain that this community has recently become infested with people who brag about how many dolls they have and people who treat the hobby either like a fad or their reason for existing. I find that it’s a lot of fun. Besides, what community doesn’t have some annoying people in it?
Anyway, you can meet a lot of people through your doll!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hope that was informative for anyone who is like “what is this girl talking about?!” with the dolls and such.
~Jen
So, the two K-on! dollfie dream fullsets have been officially valued at just under $700. As much as I ADORE the Yui one, I just can’t spend that much on her. I hope to own a fullset dollfie dream some day, but I guess I’ll just have to like her more to get it. They’re gonna sell the uniform (sans the blazer) so I’ll probably get that when it comes out. I would actually like to make my own Mugi girl at some point, maybe. Even though she’s my third fav K-on girl, she’s my favorite in design. I love her peacefulness.
But enough about that. Oh, hey, look, we have a banner now *blinks* Huh, I guess Tony did that.
I’ve been going through my old drawings and practicing my traditional coloring because, frankly, I suck at it. I’m not improving very fast. It’s frustrating.
Last night I woke up feeling really sick, so I stumbled out of bed. Those of you who wrote my writing exercise know that my imagination is vivid when I’m between being asleep and awake, and I had this great inspiration and just starting drawing at like 3:00 AM. Basically I thought up a Borderlands inspired world and all of these costume designs floated around in my head, sort of like adventure gear meets steam punk. I’m leaning towards using my friends as characters, but I’d have to ask them/see if I can even draw them decently (I still have problems drawing Tony and I swear I’ve drawn him a bajillion times). I’d also probably have to contact them sometimes and be like “what would you say in this position” annnnd I dunno if they’d want to be bothered.
Oh, sorry, I totally didn’t explain that. I was thinking of doing an illustrated online novel/webcomic with it. Basically the idea is that I can either draw or write whenever I want, or do both in the same installment, so that I don’t get worn out with it as fast. I get tired of drawing really fast, but I can write for quite a while before it gets to me.
My last idea for this comic/writing project involved a zombie plot, but frankly, I don’t think I could draw zombies (although I did a hilarious group drawing of the L4D1 zoms). Plus as I sketched out the plot I realized that it was too heavy for my tastes, what with the death and the turning into the living dead and such. This plot is much lighter.
Unnnghhh I want to work on it right now, bye bye XD
~Jen
I had Ayrisene leave another message for Mendokusai’s Alister:
Cheer up Alister!
Wheee! Volks apparently made K-on dollfies, something I have been really wanting. Check them out, although the available pics aren’t that great:
Yui and Mio on figure.fm From this view, I like Yui <33
The bad news? They’re probably gonna cost an arm and a leg (read: more than two new resin dolls). While basic dollfie dreams are comparatively affordable, fullsets involving licensed characters cost $600-900 each, depending on what kind of items are included with them. Mio and Yui come with the guitar and uniform, so I’m guessing roughly $800. I don’t know if I can stomach paying that much for one doll; the two dolls I want to buy this year cost $720 together ($360 each).
Which leads me to my next point: I want to get into customizing Dollfie Dream heads. This involves sanding, dremeling, and painting them to change their expressions and make them unique. There are typically 2 to 10 such heads for sale on yahoo japan, and nice ones go from $100-500 ish. The heads originally cost $42. The thing is, I don’t know any customizers in America, so I’m hoping that if I try it and do okay, I will get an enthusiastic response from American dollfie dream collectors who can’t afford $800 fullsets but still want cute dollfie dreams.
We’ll see.
~Jen
Today I did something that no one with so many dolls should do: I did a complete photoshoot, taking a few pictures of each girl. I ended up with 176 photos. I did this because the sunlight was superb; I guess it was because the snow was reflecting the light? But the lighting was miraculous and I got the best pictures I have ever taken, hands down.
The only problem is that I’ve been editing, resizing, and uploading them all day, and I still have only covered about half of them @___@ So, here’s some of my favorites. (Also, be sure to check out my “dollhouse” tab, which will be updated with some of these pics).
Ayris and Lym chill out
Ayris
Lym
Arlet
Nora
~Jen
I want my dollfie dream to come already!!! AUuuuUUUGGgggGGGHhhhHHhhH!!!!!
For thr curious, I ordered a dollfie dream with an NS type II body, M bust, and the DD04 head. I also got her a brown bob wig, a wig cap, blue F type animetic eyes, a school uniform type outfit (western style, not a sailor fuku), and a-get this- little sheer body thing to keep her clothes from staining her vinyl. It’s basically like having skin toned nylons on her whole body… Or like a dollfie condom. Teehee.
My doll will look something like that picture above. This hair, eyes, and sculpt are the same! Woah! We have some similar tastes! I nabbed this pic from a post on figure.fm (See?
The bad news is that she won’t have a faceup. However, I didn’t want to spend about $650 to get a dollfie dream fullset, nor did I want to wait about six months to receive the doll after I ordered it. I saved about $200 this way, and also got a head cap and body slip, which aren’t included in the fullsets. I’m hoping my experience drawing anime peoples will come in handy and I’ll give her a super cute faceup :D
Hmm? What’s the difference between this doll and the rest of my crew, you ask? More on that when she comes. Look forward to it! ;) She should be here tomorrow or the next day.
…I also want to NOT have to “write an outline of everything you learned in physics last semester.” Worth two points. Yeah. Thanks.
~Jen
So, I counted up my birthday and Christmas monies and made a decision to buy clothes,eyes, and wigs for my beauties instead of buying a new one. It was kind of tough, but needed to be done. I’m just waiting to find out if I can do a group order to lower the shipping costs before I go ahead and order the last outfits. Unfortunately, even if you order just one dress, the shipping from overseas costs $20-$50, so doll people pull together and make big orders and split this cost. I just need to find people who want the same companies as me.
In other news, I decided to get a bit more serious about my goal of becoming a fantasy novelist. To that end, I’ve decided to read a bunch of random fantasy novels (for research in my genre) and classics (because those are the best books there are, and can best teach me how to be a great writer). The idea is to take notes as I go along, either to mark a passage I liked, or a passage I disliked, and why. Also to copy quotes, because I horde quotes from literature and songs for some reason. I also want to go back and reread the literature I own, which is no small task in itself.
My first book will be Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, followed by a random fantasy book I picked up (more details when I get into it). Well, actually, I’ll probably finish the book I’m rereading for the bajillionth time first.
I may also start doing writing exercises, but I’ll stop/not post them if they’re boring :/
In other other news, I’ve recently picked up my old Oblivion file. I gave up the game in frustration when it pwned me in my first trip to Oblivion years ago. I have matured since then, and learned to swallow my pride, which I did in no small way by turning the game to easy mode. Oh well! At least I can play it now.
If anyone has any favorite fantasy novels and/or classics, let me know and I’ll read them!
~Jen
Hey all! Happy New Year and all that! Has anyone broken their resolutions yet?
Fairyland just started their winter event. This means that if you spend X money, you get presents with your order. This time around, these gifts are animal themed faceplates, including a polar bear, a seal, and an arctic fox. There’s also the sleeping version of the scarred head I got last time, and a new funky arm thing.
Events also include new dolls and fullsets. Let me show you my favorites!
I really like the Littlefee fullset that you see in the bottom image. It also includes shoes and an adorable hooded cloak. I love that doll and am tempted, but the lack of funds… Well… We’ll see. *plot plot*
I really can’t wait for things to settle down. I’ve been moving from place to place for a few days at a time, and I really just want to relax and stay in one place for a while. Sigh…
~Jen
PS: For the curious, my resolution is to find more time to do artsy things like writing and drawing :D
